The Vázquez de Coronado mansion glittered with crystal light and polished marble. Yet for Jimena, 24 and thoughtful beyond her years, all that luxury felt like a corridor with no doors. Ever since her debut at fifteen, she had been measured by gowns, by scales, by glances that tallied what she was not. She was soft-cheeked and full-bodied, with honeyed eyes that warmed when she laughed. But the mirror her family held up to her showed only lack.
At gatherings she learned to fold herself into corners next to grandmothers and potted palms. She smiled on cue. She danced only when pressed. She retreated to her grandmother’s books and the small comforts of kitchen sweets, the only tenderness that didn’t ask her to be someone else.
